As with any kind of young adult literature dealing with challenging themes, the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins has generated its fair share of controversy. Although most adults, both teachers and parents alike, have no problem with the books, a small minority have taken against them, criticizing them in particular for their violent subject matter.

In 2011, a parent in New Hampshire asked her local school to remove the first installment in the Hunger Games series from the school library because it gave her daughter nightmares. Indeed, in that year alone, the Hunger Games trilogy were among the most complained-about titles in the United States. Critics railed against what they saw as the books' "anti-family" stance, which one assumes conflicted with the traditional family unit valorized by evangelical Christians and family values campaigners.

It's reasonably safe to assume that allegations of promoting Satanism come from the same quarters. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the Hunger Games series is set in a world where religion is noticeable by its absence.

Others expressed concern that reading the books would somehow desensitize children to violence, which they argued was, in any case, age-inappropriate. The books are indeed extremely violent in places, but defenders of the Hunger Games series have argued that it educates young readers about violence rather than promoting it.